January 7, 2009 - Long Shadows and Solemnity at the Dog Park

The sun was almost as low as the temperature when we headed over to the Airport Dog Park on Wednesday. The wind-chill was in the "slam your nostrils shut range," something akin to drinking too much ice cold milk on a hot summer's day and having your frontal lobes slam into your low-hanging cranial door jam.

Even the dogs were affected. Well, most of them, they were going at hyper-speed to try and keep warm.

There was one contraindication though, an old golden retriever that happily sat in the permafrost and chomped on a favorite stick, totally incorrigible to the cold. She looked as though she was happily sitting on the beach at Spring Break. Freakish.

The sun was so low in the sky as it always as this time of year at our latitude; and with our winter permaclouds the light lent an air of solemnity, and I don't know, I guess 'isolation' to the day.
This is enhanced when you are walking around inside a huge jacket with a sweatshirt under it, both hoods up and a hat on, thick gloves and a couple layers of pants to boot. You turn your head and nothing on the outside turns with it. Sort of a spacesuit. You can feel the extremely cold and rude wind trying every loose gap and seam with one hand, while it slaps you in the face with the other, but somehow you're cut off from it. It's not like it's outside a window or anything, but your little cloth bubble makes it temporarily manageable. It's a weird feeling, sounds are muted, your tactile sense is changed and your eyes are fighting the cold dryness and bright reflection. I like it.

The ironic thing, and isn't there always an ironic thing, is that the sun is actually closer to the Earth in winter. At least in the Northern Hemisphere. 

Correlation is not causation. But you knew that...